Travel Writer of the Year

Good news: I've been named 2016 Travel Writer of the Year by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Which is pretty cool. Actually, they call it Travel Journalist of the Year, but even though I sometimes do journalist-y things, I like to imagine I'm more writer than reporter. Humor me, okay?

The judges, professors from the esteemed Missouri School of Journalism, said this about my work: "His stories are expertly crafted to capture the tension and the scenes. His readers ride with him. His stories are narratives with character, tension and resolution."

Thanks guys. I work hard on my stories to do just that. And publishers take note — readers want stories with personality and verve. They want to hear the writer's voice. They want to be transported and be in the story as they read.

Big thanks to Sierra, National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Traveler, Adventure Cyclist, SUP, and The Clymb for giving me the platforms to tell the stories that won this award. A special shout-out to Sierra for their partnership the last few years and for the great editors I work with there, with a special nod to Reed McManus, who skillfully edited my stories on dancing with wolves in Glacier Park and climate change's affect on skiing shortly before passing away of a heart attack in early January. His untimely departure is a reminder for all of us to enjoy our lives while we're here. Let's get out there, have fun, help people whenever possible, and explore this amazing world while we're able.

Here are some of the stories that won me travel writing's highest honor.

"The Wildest Valley," Sierra magazine, Nov/Dec 2015

"Circling the Volcanoes, One Family Circumnavigates Nicaragua's Ometepe by Bike," Adventure Cyclist, May 2015

"North of the Border, A Family Explore Alberta by SUP," SUP the Mag, Summer 2015

"How to Become an Outdoor Writer and Photographer," The Clymb blog

"Worlds Most Unexpected Ski Areas," National Geographic Adventure

Lastly, you may have noticed, or maybe you didn't, ahem, that this blog has gone fallow. With the uninspiring Blogger design and fact that I'm busy with paying work, I wouldn't expect it to come alive with new posts anytime soon. If I do get inspired to write something without a paycheck (seriously, I spend enough time sweating blood at my desk as it is, and I'm also working on a book, which pays squat for the time being), it will probably be at Medium where I can make things more engaging and prettier. 

In the meantime, feel free to follow my professional page on Facebook and turn notifications on so you don't miss it when I post images like this, from my upcoming story on grizzly bears. And, yeah, my camera now has teeth marks on it.

Award season: Travel Journalist of the Year. Sort of.

It’s been a good year for writing and photography awards, which means I have some new certificates and plaques to figure out what to do with. The biggest plaque came from the Society of American Travel Writer’s Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards (three times fast!), the most prestigious in the industry. The SATW were kind enough to give me a bronze award for their 2012 Grand Award — Travel Journalist of the Year. Gray-haired people seem to appreciate this one the most, since they actually know who Lowell Thomas was (in short: the man). Though I submitted skiing, paddling, and non-sporty stories as part of my year’s work, the judges seemed to most appreciate my off-the-beaten path cycling adventures. Here’s what they had to say:

Finding Kishenehn

November’s wan light drained from the sky as I walked alone into a forgotten corner of Glacier National Park. As night grew from the shadows, noises in the forest grew louder. My head jerked at the sound of a branch brushing my pants. A foot of fresh snow obscured the tracks of an oversized carnivore on the trail that led me into dark timber. Everywhere was blackness, the world reduced to my headlamp’s bobbing orb of light. It seemed inevitable it would suddenly be filled by some variety of toothy creature.

I checked the pepper spray canister in my pack’s side pocket. Then I remembered the propellant in pepper spray doesn't work in temperatures below freezing. It was 20 degrees.

"Well, this is exciting," I thought to myself.

What the Mountains Give

We didn't know we'd encounter two bears in a matter of hours, but Greg Fortin and I knew we were in for an adventure when we started pedaling away from Glacier Park's Avalanche Campground parking lot at 8:20 last Friday night. It was an absurdly late time to head into Glacier's bear-riddled backcountry, but, as a smiling old man once said to me when he saw me bicycle touring in a rainstorm, "You go when you can."

We only had 48 hours before backcountry permit officials, concerned we'd interfere with road crews plowing record snow off Going To The Sun Road, insisted we be back. The road crews might have been miserable, but we weren't going to let that magnificent, once in a lifetime June snowpack go to waste. We were going to ski. With tent, sleeping bags, skis, and food for two days in our bike trailers, we set off for the mountains.

Five minutes later an enormous, glistening scat pile appeared in the road. Seconds later came the bear. Neither of us noticed it until the moment we passed it, standing on its hind legs and staring at us intensely not 20 feet to my right.

Spring update

It's been an action-packed last few months here at Teasdale HQ, leaving precious little time for bloggerating. But rest assured that all is well, though future posts may be "skinnier" than the epics I was posting for a while there. 

Anyone interested in seeing my latest story from British Columbia's fanged and furry Flathead Valley should head on over to Sierra magazine's website (or buy the current issue, May/June 2011, at your neighborhood newsstand, assuming you still have one). 

www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201105/flathead-guardians.aspx

A friend and I biked and packrafted the valley, then climbed a mountain at the river's headwaters that was threatened with mountaintop-removal mining and slept bare on its summit (you can read more about that adventure here: aaronteasdale.blogspot.com/2010/02/flathead-celebration.html).

My sons and I are also featured in the current (May) issue of Outside magazine, in their guide to fatherhood. In it, I dispense what they call "essential advice for adventurous fathers." Which I guess means that if you're an adventurous father you'd better read it. Or you could just take your kids into the woods. That's my essential advice: get out there, as often as possible.

The article and images also live online here:

http://outsideonline.com/adventure/travel-ga-201106-kids-adventure-travel-sidwcmdev_156151.html

Winter descends on Kishenehn, Glacier Park's lost corner

Deep in the far northwest corner of Glacier National Park, wedged between the Canadian border and the North Fork of the Flathead River, sits a pocket of rarely visited wild country known as Kishenehn. If you look at a park map you will see no official trails here, though old maps will reveal a forgotten ranger station a few miles from the Canadian border. There used to be an old Kootenai Indian trail along Kishenehn Creek, and in later years a narrow dirt road followed the river, but they, like everything else in this wilderness, were eventually abandoned and lost to the forest.

The old ranger station is still used by the occasional researcher or ranger who come here to examine the wildlife and ancient forests. My friend Ben goes there too. Every fall he's stationed at the cabin for several weeks to keep an eye out for poachers (hunting isn't allowed in the park). So Ben gets to hike around and watch for anyone with a rifle who might ford the river. He hasn't seen any hunters yet, but he's seen wolves run by the cabin and grizzly bears standing atop freshly killed elk. It's wild in there.

Naturally, I join him whenever I can.

Best. May Day. Ever.

It was a gray and rainy May Day in western Montana, at least for most people. For a certain band of five diehard skiers, however, it was something else entirely.

After waking at 6:00 a.m. and driving north to the Flathead Valley, I met up with Greg Fortin, a fellow adventure-hound, and a few of his skiing partners. Greg and I took an epic four-day trip together a couple winters ago into Glacier Park's Jackson and Blackfoot Glaciers in the mountains behind St. Mary Lake (tangent alert!), which Greg is crossing in the picture below...

Absurdly scenic mountains aside, you know a trip is a good one when you take refuge during a blizzard to load up on coffee and gorge on bacon...

River skiing

In the ongoing meteorological tragedy that has been our winter in Montana this year, daytime temperatures are now hitting the mid-fifties and our snowpack is going fast. We'll be skiing in the mountains for a couple more months (knock on wood), but the valley snow is almost gone. Recently took the family out on the skinny skis for a day cruising the ice ledges still clinging to the North Fork of the Flathead River along the western border of Glacier Park. Bet you can't ski there anymore, but we had a great day exploring and, best of all, no one fell in the river...

North Fork vacation

Spent a few days in the North Fork valley recently. The North Fork of the Flathead River, that is. But in Montana most people just call it the North Fork. My last couple posts celebrated the northern half of the valley, which lies in Canada and is simply called the Flathead.
But this post is about the Montana side of the valley where my family has a rustic cabin. I spend as much time up there as I possibly can. Would live up there if I could, but kids need school, I guess.
So I was up there with the family for a few days. Chopped wood, skied every day, and spent evenings reading books and gazing into the fireplace. I love chopping wood...

Where the Wild Things Are, Part Two

On our third day in the wild, we awake early and gather water from an opening where Kintla Creek spills into Kintla Lake. Our goal for the day is several miles deeper into the park: Upper Kintla Lake.

There isn’t enough snow to ski, so we strap skis to packs and hike. No matter how deep the snow in the surrounding area, a strange snow shadow in this valley perennially limits depths to a few inches. It’s this consistent lack of snow that attracts deer, lots and lots of deer. This veritable venison buffet keeps the wolves here all winter and also explains the grizzlies — no need to hibernate when you can chase wolves off their kills and score free feasts all winter long.

Where the Wild Things Are, revisited

I'll be in the backcountry of Glacier National Park for the next four days, for we're taking a break from our normally scheduled programming to revisit the story of my trip into Glacier last winter. I'm heading into this same area again this year, with a few new twists. I'll post more about this year's trip when I'm back in civilization, but for now check out the story and photos below (note: this originally ran on Karhu's blog here).

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We set out for a remote corner of Glacier National Park on a sunny late winter morning, GPS and camera in hand, ready to record all of the wild and strange things we could find. Ben and I met here a few winters back working on a forest carnivore study; we spent that winter skiing and tracking together, and no place we explored harbored more odd and grisly findings than the area around Kintla Lake. When the opportunity came to ski back in and survey the area for park biologists, we jumped at the chance. Our friend Travis came along (who’s worked as a fire lookout in a tower on one of the peaks in the background — the same tower as Ed Abbey) and we set out for four days in the wilds to see what we could see.

Courage

Into the wildest of wilds

Benjamin and I recently trekked into a remote, rarely-visited area of Glacier Park for four days of hiking, writing, beaver-channel jumping, and grizzly bear tracking. I'll be doing a longer report from the trip soon. For now here are a few teaser images...